Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Posted by
RFTR

Off the benchOkay, so it's been over a month since I posted anything. Time to get off my ass and back in the game. This may turn out to be another three-day long, aborted attempt—but we'll see how it goes.

So, what is there to comment on? I honestly can't think of a single thing that's going on in the world worth talking about... oh. Wait. I heard something about Israel, and maybe Lebanon? Let me just... check the... news, here.

Hmmm. Seems like a pretty big deal. So, I know you're all dying to know what I think.

Pretty simple, really—one word conclusion: good.

I mean, it's obvious that Israel is only doing this to get Joe Lieberman elected. My Zionist co-conspirators have been warning me not to admit it in public, but it seems clear to me that everyone knows what's going on. The Israeli government knows that they need Lieberman as an advocate (since he is their puppet) and that he's in danger of losing. But if they can draw out the freedom fighters of Hamas and Hezbollah, and play up the victimization of Israel angle and drum up support for Lieberman's flagging campaign.

I mean, seriously, there's no other possible explanation for Israel's decision to invade Lebanon, right?

Frankly, others have already tackled this topic ad nauseum, so I'll defer to their wisdom.

Okay, so that was a pretty wimpy first day back. I'll try to do better tomorrow. Or later tonight if I'm in the mood.

UPDATE [7/18/2006 - 19:35]: More brilliance on the issue from CNN.com:

Israeli airstrikes pounded the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital near the airport early Wednesday, lighting up the night with explosions. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the latest airstrikes, but at least 12 people died in Israel and Lebanon on Tuesday.

According to The CIA Worldbook, the estimated July 2006 population of Israel is 6,352,117 and the yearly death rate is an estimated 6.18 deaths per 1,000 people.

The estimates for Lebanon are 3,874,050 people and a death rate of 6.21 people per 1,000 per year.

So, let's round Israel down to 6 million and Lebanon down to 3 million, which is dropping better than a million to be conservative—and with the same motive, let's round both death rates to 6 per 1,000 per year. So we've got 9 million people dying at a rate of 6 per 1,000 per year. That's 9,000 deaths per year between the two countries. Divide that by 365, and you get an average of 24.6 deaths per year.

So, according to CNN, the violence in Israel and Lebanon has actually halved the average death rate!